7 ms·

Apple spent countless development hours writing an entire BootPolicy framework to allow other OSes (and self-built macOS kernels) to run on these machines. Not

Apple spent countless development hours writing an entire BootPolicy framework to allow other OSes (and self-built macOS kernels) to run on these machines. Not only that, their secureboot implementation implements per-OS security modes, which means you can dual boot Linux with a full secure macOS, including running iOS apps and Netflix in 4K. Can't do that with LineageOS! Linux on M1 Macs is "supported" exactly the same as Linux on any random PC without manufacturer support. Sure, it's more work to get running, because it's a new undocumented platform... but we've signed up to do the work. If Linux on these machines is an "unsupported hack" then so is Linux on the vast majority of desktop/laptop computers people use.

techrat 5y ago
> Linux on Macs is "supported" exactly the same as Linux on any random PC without manufacturer support. Bullshit. Intel and AMD both contribute to the Linux kernel to have their hardware, CPUs and GPUs both, supported. Show me Apple's commits for supporting the M1 within the kernel and we'll talk. Until then, in this situation where you're trying to get Asahi Linux running for the M1, it is not exactly the same.
- marcan_42 5y ago
  And yet here I am, with Linux on an Intel laptop that can't play video without tearing. Our M1 DCP driver already does that properly. Support from chip manufacturers doesn't mean you're actually going to end up with a better user experience.
  - CarelessExpert 5y ago
    > And yet here I am, with Linux on an Intel laptop that can't play video without tearing. Odd, because here I am with an Intel laptop running Linux that manages that just fine. > Support from chip manufacturers doesn't mean you're actually going to end up with a better user experience. Honestly, this is just ridiculous. Go ask the Nouveau folks how their reverse engineering project is going. I love the drive you guys have, and I wish you the best of luck. But Apple could pull the rug out from under you any time they want in a future hardware rev (either deliberately or accidentally), and all you can do is keep on reverse engineering in the hopes of keeping up. Edit: Updated pronouns since apparently the OP is one of the project maintainers.
    - cyberpunk 5y ago
      cough You may as well say “you” instead of “these guys” btw, perhaps a careless mistake but you were speaking to the lead developer of the Asahi effort and I would hazard a guess his views on the Linux kernel and vendor support are a tad more nuanced than “ridiculous”
      - CarelessExpert 5y ago
        LOL, just because they're running the project, doesn't mean their opinions are sacrosanct or unquestionable. The statement they made is ridiculous, and I stand by my decision to label it as such. If you want to explain to me how I'm wrong instead of simply appealing to authority, you're obviously free to do so.
        kelnos 5y ago
        You made an absolutist statement that support from a manufacturer will always result in a better user experience than community support only. That sounds entirely ridiculous and unsupportable to me. And please don't trot out the "appealing to authority" bit. That absolutely doesn't apply here; when it comes to an opinion about some hardware/software project, I would 100% take the word of the lead developer on that project over a rando on HN who has for some inexplicable reason decided to pick a fight about something they appear to not have any domain knowledge about.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
    - marcan_42 5y ago
      > Odd, because here I am with an Intel laptop running Linux that manages that just fine. Then it's not an Ivy Bridge running multiple external displays on KDE. > Honestly, this is just ridiculous. Go ask the Nouveau folks how their reverse engineering project is going. Nvidia created an actively hostile firmware situation. We already have the firmware story worked out. Plus having to support a bazillion GPU generations with incompatible interfaces burns people out. We're starting with one, and Apple has a much better track record of incremental change and avoiding hardware churn. This is unique, and we've literally heard from Apple employees that this is an explicit goal. It shows all throughout the SoC design. > and all you can do is keep on reverse engineering in the hopes of keeping up. And we will keep on reverse engineering, and we'll keep up :-)
  - _xy8h 5y ago
    - easton 5y ago
      And Microsoft could ask the OEMs to push a UEFI update that enforces secure boot with only the Windows keys. I don’t think they will though.
      - CarelessExpert 5y ago
        > And Microsoft could ask the OEMs to push a UEFI update that enforces secure boot with only the Windows keys. I don’t think they will though. Well, let's be fair: They could try, but again, that'd require those OEMs to cooperate. And you'd still end up with folks like System76 and Framework that'd go their own way because nothing can stop a vendor from creating an open x86-based design. They just wouldn't be able to ship Windows pre-installed. Apple, by contrast, could just do it by fiat because they own the entire ecosystem, and no one could do a damn thing about it. That's the difference between an open, interoperable ecosystem and a closed one. I genuinely don't understand the debate, here. Are you seriously trying to claim that the Apple hardware platform and the x86 ecosystem are equally open/closed?
    - theodric 5y ago
      You're right, we should just give up and devote our time to other things.
      - _xy8h 5y ago
        What I'm saying is that I feel it's a better use of man hours of open source advocates to code for hardware from companies that support OSS and not one that is viciously hostile to its users.
        marcan_42 5y ago
        I'd much rather reverse engineer proprietary hardware; I get to have fun doing that and I get to play the upstreaming game better than any of those companies that "support open source" that you love so much (have you seen the mess AMD made? They have hundreds of megabytes of autogenerated headers in the Linux tree now!), while working with a team of motivated and experienced developers and working to make everyone's life as pleasant as possible, minimizing churn, red tape, and inefficiency. Seriously, there's no way I'd be half as happy working at Intel on Linux drivers as I am working on the M1. And it's not like they support external developers either - most of the chip documentation for Intel/AMD stuff is not public. You can't actually build working graphics drivers from their public docs, not even remotely close. Heck, I had to reverse engineer AMD's GPU microcode to get the variant in the PS4 to work. Totally undocumented stuff.
webmobdev 5y ago
The only reason this project is getting so much PR is because of Apple. Apple's PR machination is eager to show that developers are fully behind its new Apple Silicon platform, and thus works behind the scenes to give this project the publicity they need. (Everybody knows what happens to platforms that don't see developer support). But more than that, it is also to spread the fudge that the M1 supports alternative OSes, where as the reality is that it will never support a fully features OS - Apple's business and design goals with the M1 was to create a locked desktop that can only run macOS and only allow other alternate OSes to run using virtualisation on macOS, so that the users data can always be mined. And they have successfully done that. The developers behind this project are naive to believe that Apple will let them sabotage their efforts to lock down the macOS platform, like the ios platform that earns, that earns them billions of dollars. The locked-down M1 desktops / laptops are just one of the last step towards this goal. As I said elsewhere, just look at what has been happening to the Mac Mini: 1. The first few Intel Mac Minis allowed you some level of customisation of both the hardware (change RAM or HDD / SSD) and software (install other full featured OS). 2. Then came the Mac Minis with soldered RAM and SSD. You could no longer customise the hardware. Software was still customisable and you could still install other OSes. (Recall that Apple even offered free drivers for another OS, i.e. Windows). 3. The current generation of M1 Mini now doesn't allow you to customise both the hardware (everything is soldered) and the software. Technically you can install other OSes, but the reality is that currently only crippled versions of Linux and xBSD is available and practically the only full-featured OS available for it is macOS. These are clear indicators of how Apple has been working slowly to lockdown the Mac platform like their ios platforms. The frog is still slowly boiling - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog - to keep you in denial. Now the only thing that remains is for the bootloader to be locked, and that will the last nail in the coffin of the M1 desktop platform. And it will happen in the near future once the M1 platform reaches a critical adoption point. (I can understand why the project developers are hostile here to critics like me - the good publicity has been bringing them money, and that's quite rare for an open source projects).

techrat 5y ago

> Linux on Macs is "supported" exactly the same as Linux on any random PC without manufacturer support. Bullshit. Intel and AMD both contribute to the Linux kernel to have their hardware, CPUs and GPUs both, supported. Show me Apple's commits for supporting the M1 within the kernel and we'll talk. Until then, in this situation where you're trying to get Asahi Linux running for the M1, it is not exactly the same.

marcan_42 5y ago
And yet here I am, with Linux on an Intel laptop that can't play video without tearing. Our M1 DCP driver already does that properly. Support from chip manufacturers doesn't mean you're actually going to end up with a better user experience.
- CarelessExpert 5y ago
  > And yet here I am, with Linux on an Intel laptop that can't play video without tearing. Odd, because here I am with an Intel laptop running Linux that manages that just fine. > Support from chip manufacturers doesn't mean you're actually going to end up with a better user experience. Honestly, this is just ridiculous. Go ask the Nouveau folks how their reverse engineering project is going. I love the drive you guys have, and I wish you the best of luck. But Apple could pull the rug out from under you any time they want in a future hardware rev (either deliberately or accidentally), and all you can do is keep on reverse engineering in the hopes of keeping up. Edit: Updated pronouns since apparently the OP is one of the project maintainers.
  - cyberpunk 5y ago
    cough You may as well say “you” instead of “these guys” btw, perhaps a careless mistake but you were speaking to the lead developer of the Asahi effort and I would hazard a guess his views on the Linux kernel and vendor support are a tad more nuanced than “ridiculous”
    - CarelessExpert 5y ago
      LOL, just because they're running the project, doesn't mean their opinions are sacrosanct or unquestionable. The statement they made is ridiculous, and I stand by my decision to label it as such. If you want to explain to me how I'm wrong instead of simply appealing to authority, you're obviously free to do so.
      - kelnos 5y ago
        You made an absolutist statement that support from a manufacturer will always result in a better user experience than community support only. That sounds entirely ridiculous and unsupportable to me. And please don't trot out the "appealing to authority" bit. That absolutely doesn't apply here; when it comes to an opinion about some hardware/software project, I would 100% take the word of the lead developer on that project over a rando on HN who has for some inexplicable reason decided to pick a fight about something they appear to not have any domain knowledge about.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
  - marcan_42 5y ago
    > Odd, because here I am with an Intel laptop running Linux that manages that just fine. Then it's not an Ivy Bridge running multiple external displays on KDE. > Honestly, this is just ridiculous. Go ask the Nouveau folks how their reverse engineering project is going. Nvidia created an actively hostile firmware situation. We already have the firmware story worked out. Plus having to support a bazillion GPU generations with incompatible interfaces burns people out. We're starting with one, and Apple has a much better track record of incremental change and avoiding hardware churn. This is unique, and we've literally heard from Apple employees that this is an explicit goal. It shows all throughout the SoC design. > and all you can do is keep on reverse engineering in the hopes of keeping up. And we will keep on reverse engineering, and we'll keep up :-)
- _xy8h 5y ago
  - easton 5y ago
    And Microsoft could ask the OEMs to push a UEFI update that enforces secure boot with only the Windows keys. I don’t think they will though.
    - CarelessExpert 5y ago
      > And Microsoft could ask the OEMs to push a UEFI update that enforces secure boot with only the Windows keys. I don’t think they will though. Well, let's be fair: They could try, but again, that'd require those OEMs to cooperate. And you'd still end up with folks like System76 and Framework that'd go their own way because nothing can stop a vendor from creating an open x86-based design. They just wouldn't be able to ship Windows pre-installed. Apple, by contrast, could just do it by fiat because they own the entire ecosystem, and no one could do a damn thing about it. That's the difference between an open, interoperable ecosystem and a closed one. I genuinely don't understand the debate, here. Are you seriously trying to claim that the Apple hardware platform and the x86 ecosystem are equally open/closed?
  - theodric 5y ago
    You're right, we should just give up and devote our time to other things.
    - _xy8h 5y ago
      What I'm saying is that I feel it's a better use of man hours of open source advocates to code for hardware from companies that support OSS and not one that is viciously hostile to its users.
      - marcan_42 5y ago
        I'd much rather reverse engineer proprietary hardware; I get to have fun doing that and I get to play the upstreaming game better than any of those companies that "support open source" that you love so much (have you seen the mess AMD made? They have hundreds of megabytes of autogenerated headers in the Linux tree now!), while working with a team of motivated and experienced developers and working to make everyone's life as pleasant as possible, minimizing churn, red tape, and inefficiency. Seriously, there's no way I'd be half as happy working at Intel on Linux drivers as I am working on the M1. And it's not like they support external developers either - most of the chip documentation for Intel/AMD stuff is not public. You can't actually build working graphics drivers from their public docs, not even remotely close. Heck, I had to reverse engineer AMD's GPU microcode to get the variant in the PS4 to work. Totally undocumented stuff.

webmobdev 5y ago

The only reason this project is getting so much PR is because of Apple. Apple's PR machination is eager to show that developers are fully behind its new Apple Silicon platform, and thus works behind the scenes to give this project the publicity they need. (Everybody knows what happens to platforms that don't see developer support). But more than that, it is also to spread the fudge that the M1 supports alternative OSes, where as the reality is that it will never support a fully features OS - Apple's business and design goals with the M1 was to create a locked desktop that can only run macOS and only allow other alternate OSes to run using virtualisation on macOS, so that the users data can always be mined. And they have successfully done that. The developers behind this project are naive to believe that Apple will let them sabotage their efforts to lock down the macOS platform, like the ios platform that earns, that earns them billions of dollars. The locked-down M1 desktops / laptops are just one of the last step towards this goal. As I said elsewhere, just look at what has been happening to the Mac Mini: 1. The first few Intel Mac Minis allowed you some level of customisation of both the hardware (change RAM or HDD / SSD) and software (install other full featured OS). 2. Then came the Mac Minis with soldered RAM and SSD. You could no longer customise the hardware. Software was still customisable and you could still install other OSes. (Recall that Apple even offered free drivers for another OS, i.e. Windows). 3. The current generation of M1 Mini now doesn't allow you to customise both the hardware (everything is soldered) and the software. Technically you can install other OSes, but the reality is that currently only crippled versions of Linux and xBSD is available and practically the only full-featured OS available for it is macOS. These are clear indicators of how Apple has been working slowly to lockdown the Mac platform like their ios platforms. The frog is still slowly boiling - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog - to keep you in denial. Now the only thing that remains is for the bootloader to be locked, and that will the last nail in the coffin of the M1 desktop platform. And it will happen in the near future once the M1 platform reaches a critical adoption point. (I can understand why the project developers are hostile here to critics like me - the good publicity has been bringing them money, and that's quite rare for an open source projects).